Researching the ill effects of "free trade," the gagging contracts US career lawyers and economists construe for the sole gain of US multi-national corporations in developing nations, who are promised a better material world, I had heard that Bordertown was in the making. At the Berlin film festival writer/producer/director Gregory Nava and his star Jennifer Lopez, as well as producer Barbara Martinez, were convincing in their mission to fashion a movie, loosely based on the facts of continued and brutal rapes with the killing and/or disappearance of many young woman victims that came to Juarez. (Juarez is located across the US-Mexican border bridge connecting El Paso, New Mexico.)
Most every feeling being with a conscience will support such an infocational flick, and therefore it hurts to say that the filmmakers failed in their stated, and otherwise laudable aim. The prescription for Hollywood is simply to demand thrilling action so that the adrenaline-seeking crowds will fill the box-office coffers, even though this movie has the looks, feel and production quality that indicate that not much money was spent on it. Besides an above-average amount of "goofs," the emphasis is made on imprecisely-executed chase-and-run scenes, while the development of characters is almost entirely absent due to a rather phlegmatic script.
For instance, we find out about the background of the main character, the journalist Lauren Adrian (Jennifer Lopez) during black-and-white flashbacks that can not possible make sense to the most avid moviegoer, until she actually dialogs its meaning during a scene towards the end of the movie. (IMDB lists the character name as Lauren Fredericks.) Her prior relationship with Juarez-based "El Sol" journalist Diaz (Antonio Banderas) is cleverly revealed during dialogs, and it becomes obvious that Lauren had dumped him in the past, that he now had a family he cared for, and that he still loved Lauren enough to keep her out of danger.
On the other hand, we learn nothing about the police, who want to avoid any publicity of the brutal murders, and who are shown to be only superficially interested in solving the murders that the movie claims are as many as 4.000, while even Amnesty International describes over 400. Of course, if it was one, it would be objectionable, but why the hype? Is that another sign that the movie wants to built on the sure-fire success of sensationalism, while it can not offer the real goods of a well-developed story with two- and three-dimensional characters, who want a better world, while materialistic psycho- and sociopaths seem to have the upper hand in killing teenage women, who come to work in the free-trade-created factories for about 5 bucks a day.
Or that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is written so that US companies can exploit lacking worker safety, virtually non-existent environmental laws, cheap labor and low taxes. To this very day, these companies have not instituted safe transportation for their vulnerable and poverty-stricken women employees during the changing shifts, as these factories never close.
All this is not meant to recommend that you don't go and watch the movie, or better to rent it as a DVD. It has at least entertainment value and the acting is acceptable and probably could not be any better, because the script does not give the actors much creative width and depth to re-enact. Indeed the movie has the feel as if it was made under time stress. There are reported stories that the film crew was threatened, and that many scenes were filmed in other Mexican towns that were more hospitable. It has this lets-get-it-over feeling that is also reflected in jumpy, often confusing, editing, and a music score that seems to be a one-take offering.
This topic is just too important as to trivialize it in an ill-conceived action flick. But a few scenes are as authentic as they can get. The living conditions of the workers, as the heartless and shrewd consequences of companies like DuPont, General Electric and Alcoa, who must live in slums that are literally created out of cardboard, stolen pallets, old tires and held into place by nails driven through bottle caps. And the scene, were an illegal electric hook-up ends into a fire disaster, has in reality occurred many times. Hollywood will then stage a scene were many loose their "homes" in a fast-moving fire and the most evil killer will just show up during such a disaster as the backdrop and try to kill our beloved journalist.
For the real story, enter the string "Juarez murder* women nafta" in your search engine, without the quotes, and get a hold of the real story, which includes drug lords buying into sweat shops (called maquiladoras) and using the "free-zone" infrastructure to transport truckloads of drugs across the bridge and with the railroad into the States along with television sets and monitors, and all the other sweatshop items produced by mostly young women. Our movie will not tell you that and many other aspects, as it busybodies itself with Hollywood-type, often senseless, and carelessly executed action. The topic definitely deserved a masterpiece film to get the message of this exceptionally cruel social and economic disaster across. What a real shame that it missed so badly.
Most every feeling being with a conscience will support such an infocational flick, and therefore it hurts to say that the filmmakers failed in their stated, and otherwise laudable aim. The prescription for Hollywood is simply to demand thrilling action so that the adrenaline-seeking crowds will fill the box-office coffers, even though this movie has the looks, feel and production quality that indicate that not much money was spent on it. Besides an above-average amount of "goofs," the emphasis is made on imprecisely-executed chase-and-run scenes, while the development of characters is almost entirely absent due to a rather phlegmatic script.
For instance, we find out about the background of the main character, the journalist Lauren Adrian (Jennifer Lopez) during black-and-white flashbacks that can not possible make sense to the most avid moviegoer, until she actually dialogs its meaning during a scene towards the end of the movie. (IMDB lists the character name as Lauren Fredericks.) Her prior relationship with Juarez-based "El Sol" journalist Diaz (Antonio Banderas) is cleverly revealed during dialogs, and it becomes obvious that Lauren had dumped him in the past, that he now had a family he cared for, and that he still loved Lauren enough to keep her out of danger.
On the other hand, we learn nothing about the police, who want to avoid any publicity of the brutal murders, and who are shown to be only superficially interested in solving the murders that the movie claims are as many as 4.000, while even Amnesty International describes over 400. Of course, if it was one, it would be objectionable, but why the hype? Is that another sign that the movie wants to built on the sure-fire success of sensationalism, while it can not offer the real goods of a well-developed story with two- and three-dimensional characters, who want a better world, while materialistic psycho- and sociopaths seem to have the upper hand in killing teenage women, who come to work in the free-trade-created factories for about 5 bucks a day.
Or that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is written so that US companies can exploit lacking worker safety, virtually non-existent environmental laws, cheap labor and low taxes. To this very day, these companies have not instituted safe transportation for their vulnerable and poverty-stricken women employees during the changing shifts, as these factories never close.
All this is not meant to recommend that you don't go and watch the movie, or better to rent it as a DVD. It has at least entertainment value and the acting is acceptable and probably could not be any better, because the script does not give the actors much creative width and depth to re-enact. Indeed the movie has the feel as if it was made under time stress. There are reported stories that the film crew was threatened, and that many scenes were filmed in other Mexican towns that were more hospitable. It has this lets-get-it-over feeling that is also reflected in jumpy, often confusing, editing, and a music score that seems to be a one-take offering.
This topic is just too important as to trivialize it in an ill-conceived action flick. But a few scenes are as authentic as they can get. The living conditions of the workers, as the heartless and shrewd consequences of companies like DuPont, General Electric and Alcoa, who must live in slums that are literally created out of cardboard, stolen pallets, old tires and held into place by nails driven through bottle caps. And the scene, were an illegal electric hook-up ends into a fire disaster, has in reality occurred many times. Hollywood will then stage a scene were many loose their "homes" in a fast-moving fire and the most evil killer will just show up during such a disaster as the backdrop and try to kill our beloved journalist.
For the real story, enter the string "Juarez murder* women nafta" in your search engine, without the quotes, and get a hold of the real story, which includes drug lords buying into sweat shops (called maquiladoras) and using the "free-zone" infrastructure to transport truckloads of drugs across the bridge and with the railroad into the States along with television sets and monitors, and all the other sweatshop items produced by mostly young women. Our movie will not tell you that and many other aspects, as it busybodies itself with Hollywood-type, often senseless, and carelessly executed action. The topic definitely deserved a masterpiece film to get the message of this exceptionally cruel social and economic disaster across. What a real shame that it missed so badly.